Anything you’ve bought from iTunes or Xbox Arcade, for example, you don’t own and you never will
-James Allen-Robertson
In 2005, Sony went too far. In an attempt to control the illegal digital spread of music, they placed a ‘rootkit’ bug in all music CDs that automatically buried itself in a customer’s home computer on disc insertion.
This bug, only hinted at in terms and conditions which presumed compliance, monitored and reported on the personal use of the purchased music files - a covert invasion of the privacy of anyone buying a CD from one of the music industry’s major players.
As programmer Mark Russinovich - who uncovered the bugging strategy - pointed out: such techniques are more often affiliated with those looking to compromise a computer’s security. In the fog of desperation gripping an industry that could no longer see its own future, a global conglomerate turned hacker. Class action lawsuits were filed and Sony were forced to recall products and issue software to remove the bugs in what became a PR nightmare.
Read the full story
Image: Anonymous
Credit: Poster Boy NYC from Flickr
Reproduced courtesy of the University of Cambridge
_________________________________________________